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Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino Quotes

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Famous Italo Calvino Quotes

“My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight. I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language. . . . Maybe I was only then becoming aware of the weight, the inertia, the opacity of the world--qualities that stick to the writing from the start, unless one finds some way of evading them.”

PeopleWorldWayWritingSometimesStoriesBodyLanguageCitiesQualityBecomingInvolvedWeightMethodStructureSticksHeavenlyRemoveInertiaHeavenly BodiesSubtraction
Author:Italo Calvino
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“The lives of individuals of the human race form a constant plot, in which every attempt to isolate one piece of living that has a meaning separate from the rest-for example, the meeting of two people, which will become decisive for both-must bear in mind that each of the two brings with himself a texture of events, environments, other people, and that from the meeting, in turn, other stories will be derived which will break off from their common story.”

PeopleMindHumansTwoStoriesFormTurnsIndividualCommonRaceBreakEnvironmentPiecesEventsExampleBearsConstantMeetingsHuman RacePlotTextureOne PieceBreak Off
Author:Italo Calvino
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“The people who move through the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping...something runs among them, an exchange of glances like lines that connect one figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles, until all combinations are used up in a moment, and other characters come on to the scene.”

PeopleMomentsCharacterEyeRunningMovingUsedStarsLinesImagineStreetsFiguresSceneThousandConversationDrawsMeetingsSurpriseSeekingStrangerCombinationEncountersBitesLocksStoppingGlancesArrowsCaressTrianglesNever Stopping
Author:Italo Calvino
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“You're the sort of person who, on principle, no longer expects anything of anything. There are plenty, younger than you or less young, who live in the expectation of extraordinary experiences: from books, from people, from journeys, from events, from what tomorrow has in store. But not you. You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst.”

PeopleKnowsPersonsBookYoungPrinciplesJourneyWorstEventsTomorrowExpectationsExtraordinaryStoresPlenty
Book:If on a winter's night a traveler
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